Nvidia gets its chips out

CeBIT Nvidia has announced a raft of new graphics kit at CeBIT, aimed at providing what it calls "extreme high-definition" to users. SVP Dan Vivoli said the move towards high-definition displays and the extra demands it will place on hardware is: "music to our [Nvidia's] ears".

Its new flagship GeForce7900 GT high-end card leads the charge; Nvidia says this will be the fastset GPU in the market. It'll be able to support two hi-def displays simultaneously, if you're into that sort of thing. It's little brother, the 7600GT replaces the firm's best-selling 6600 chip.

After complaints from customers, the PureVideo technology, designed to lighten the CPU load, will now work with software other than Nvidia's proprietory NVDVD package.

Its super-duper SLI technology expands to handle four GPUs in desktop PCs, and the original two-chip flavour will be available for notebook gamers for the first time. The selling-point of the new Quad-SLI boxes, Nvidia says, is that 30-40fps in hi-def with all filters and dooberries turned up to 11 will be possible for the first time.

Vivoli described using an SLI-enabled laptop recently as: "The most impressive thing I've seen in my entire life." Yikes.

Nvidia's notebook main man, meanwhile, showed off the first portable with SLI grunt, from Toshiba. For the mainstream, he introduced the first integrated chipset with the NForce media chip onboard to reduce CPU power consumption, that Nvidia reckons will be the lowest-power Turion-class chipset on the market.